So what did I think?

It was a great trip. The people were really good, a great mix of individuals, and easy to get on with for the two weeks. Sure, not all of them would be my best mates for longer, but for a holiday it was great. Guy did a fantastic job, and I can't believe how matey the name windsurfers and windsurf technologists etc. are. Really patient, very friendly, and I totally love Francisco Goya!

The windsurfing was great - hard work sometimes, but I felt better for doing it. I just wish it was easier to get to waves, so i could catch them more often, but even that's improving. And I'm usefully selective at the ones I ride... Tacking - mmm, more needed on that. Definitely going to do some more loops - should be cool with the UK windsurf buddies, especially if I make one!

And I sailed and swam Ho'okipa, which is pretty cool.

Excellent! And I'll be back... I even liked Paia, which is a very sweet little town.

The Last Day

After it rained all night, again, it was time to pack up and be ready to move out. But we still had time to get to the beach - Kanaha this time, maybe there would be some swell. It took quite a while to get organised - lots of gear moving around, Raj off early so Jurgen and I got Christina's stuff, cleaning up the kitchen, stuff like that.

Eventually we met at Kanaha around 12 - it seemed kinda windy, and there was swell over on the left. I rigged up a 4.5 and a hopeful 74l board, but by the time I got down to the beach, after a sandwich, it had pretty much faded away. Didn't stop me though... went out on a big gust, and splashed around in the waves for a while - about an hour or so. Lots of swimming, but hey - good light wind practice, and caught some waves. So a good session despite the effort, and I did better than Mark, who ended up swimming back!

The last few hours involved dropping the gear back at the Maui Surf co - they were pretty easy to deal with, we just dropped the stuff off pretty much. They counted the boards etc. and that was it. Then round to the Aloha van rental co - no problem there either (I only discovered the double charge for the rental later!!! Let's hope that gets sorted...). The young guy asked if I was there about "that puppy" - "yup" - " you can pretty much do what you like with it - I reckon you'll be the last people renting that one!!". Oh, ok. So we headed back to complete re-packing, and have a final coffee at Anthony's, and a mango smoothie, and a huge brownie cake. Yum. Then back to jump on the suitcase, and hang around until the time to leave arrived. Ended up taking Pete, on the same flights to Toronto, and Jurgen, on the hunt for a Mustang convertible for the Saturday, to the airport as well. Dropped the van off in the same spot it came from, left the key under the driver's seat, and off we went. We had a tuna burger in Sammy Hagar's barr and grille before we flew out...

Tried to nap on the OGG-LAX flight, didn't do so well. Pete and I had some breakfast at LAX - Starbucks do an ok oatmeal and fruit, reinforced with more fruit and a large latte. It was a 3 hour wait, during which we didn't really do too much, except I read an interview with Kate Bush in Mojo in the bookshop. The LAX-YYZ flight was pleasantly warm and sunny, and I confess I passed out a number of times. My seat companion was an LA lady on her way to Tel Aviv for a Bahai pilgrimage, who did watercolour paintings while I napped. The supply of raisins and almonds helped wake me up, in time to see Ontario roll up in bright sunlight. Great to see Jen and Kris waiting at the arrivals gate!!

Just waves today...

We tried to get started early today, by getting out to Ho'okipa first thing-ish. There was some delay, Guy had something to do, and we had to wait for Jurgen to get his makeup on before we could leave. Hey ho...

It was absolutely pounding with rain last night again - it woke me up at 5 am it was so loud. So today we were watching the video from yesterday under the canopy, with the spray misting under the roof as the wind gusted around. Incredible rain, huge fat drops, but somehow it doesn't seem so bad when it's going to stop and possibly even be sunny any moment.

Hayl'kipa?? So where are we exactly??

An impressionistic surfer 

Anyhow, we headed for Ho'okipa in the rain... loaded with Steve, Mark and Jurgen, it was pretty cosy. Quite fun really! But Ho'okipa was just crap - no wind initially, lots of rain, and nobody out, although to be fair, Mauians don't do rain. So Sprecks again...

Just four windsurfin' guys...

We got rigged up because it was windy - 4.2 and the 84l board today. I set out for the waves, after a bad start - put the mast together the wrong way, and then put the boom on upside down, not an encouraging start. And then it rained... and then the wind dropped! Fortunately I'd headed back on the basis that when the rain goes, the wind drops usually, which was a bit lucky because lots of other people were left stuck.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging around, in alternating rain and sun, waiting for the wind to come back. People were hiding in all sorts of places, in case Guy came round and suggested we should take advantage of the momentary wind intervals - Mark did at least once, and struggled to get back. Then the clouds in the east cleared, the sun came out, and the wind came up - time to go! A great session of wind and waves, got some air, even some wave rides, definitely improving.

It was looking a bit less windy, and I was tired, so time for a break. Headed back for a snack bar and a drink, and possibly a warm-up - my right arm is really painful, to move and hold things, and it just needed some rest. There was a period of confusion - Guy was nowhere to be found, he wasn't taking pictures, and his van had gone! Eventually he appeared and said we had ten minutes to get pictures, before the rain came in and the wind dropped again, and Steve had taken the van to the hospital to get his foot checked out. That meant that our van had to take Guy's and Mark's kit as well as our own...

A proper windsurfing van...

Another great session! Shorter, but got a monumental jump in (pci courtesy of GC Industries to come...), and another good ride or two. The wind faded again, so buzzed back to the beach, and packed away. Home for a Paia Fish Market takeaway - the seafood pasta, incredible meal - and a magnum of champagne from Pol Roger, courtesy of Guy's sponsors! Just spending the last evening together looking at pictures - I'll miss Paia, it's a cool place. Hopefully we'll all be able to share the pictures we've jointly taken. A great trip.

Just sails and waves today

Very late start today, we headed over to west Maui to meet Robert Stroj, the Neil Pryde sail designer at his house and sail loft. This was quite a trip - the road (340) peters out with an "end of state highway" sign and continues for a couple of miles or more, often single track which appears to be a bit challenging for the average Maui tourist or even local.

Rob's house is pretty cool, but not exactly the spot you'd pick if you liked strolling down the pub of an evening. It's basically on the side of the mountain, overlooking the bays, and is one of those modernistic funny sharp angles and concrete efforts, with lots of sunbleached teak and suchlike. The loft is basically a large garage with a giant table and a helpful Louisa who operates the sewing machine and computerised cutter. She was busy knocking out some custom racing sails for Antoine Albeau - he wanted a 12.5m since he wasn't getting enough power with a 12m!! Also requires a longer custom mast. Blimey. Robert patiently answered lots of questions, it was quite interesting hearing about his thinking and so on, and the things he gets to do. I had a discussion with Guy later about it, which was also interesting - the Mauians clearly live in a bit of a bubble, which is nice for them but not necessarily driving the business in the right direction, but I guess they know what they're doing...

So it was quite a bit later that we went down to Sprecks, feeling pretty chilled. The wind was up and down and it was raining on and off, quite weird in a shortie wetsuit! We were instructed to attempt forward loops, but I have to say I didn't try one even. The waves were happening out on the reef, upwind, and I just worked my way in and out, upwind, in the rain, in the sun...

And Guy videoed us a bit, which proved interesting later - I keep running ahead of the wave, which is bad timing on my part. More effort required! However, a good sesh...

The Forward Loop day...

We were at Sprecks again today - pretty windy, 4.2 weather, no swell much, cross to cross-on. The entire day was spent doing forward loop exercises, in an attempt to drill them into our heads so we can do them completely automatically. Wow. Hard work. A lot of the exercises involve stooging along and then doing the dreaded sideswipe (front hand forward extended, back arm bent up so hand by your ear), and going over the front to land the right way up with the rig in the waterstart position. This I can do...

And finally, after an exhausting build-up, and in a crappy choppy wrong way sea, we got to try it for real. I managed one attempt, nothing got hurt, and I ended up in the right place, but not really a loop. But I will do this...

p.s. for anyone considering this manoeuvre, tips include: "not letting go with the back hand" - then the sail falls away and you miss it; "keep back hand sheeted in and front arm extended" - that way you're at the centre of all the rotation; I didn't keep my front arm extended on one attempt and landed on the mast - ouch!

Now sitting back at the lodge, drinking beer and very tired, pasta for supper tonight, all I did was cut tomatoes, so that's a bonus!

Ho'okipa - again!

Just in case you're in any doubt!

There really wasn't much wind anywhere today except Ho'okipa, and the swell wasn't too killer and massive. We were supposed to be meeting Robbie Naish if he could make it, so we chose to meet him there. But first - Hi-Tech shopping!!

Two floors of windsurfing stuff - a potential wallet nightmare, but I managed to talk myself out of buying anything. Dave succumbed to a Streamlined mast extension, pure aluminium solid billet sex, the simplest possible construction that could actually work. Lovely.

Then off to Ho'okipa. Not crowded at all, despite being 12.00, waves not very big, a bit offshore. Mindful of my previous marathon swimming attempt, I listened carefully to Guy's advice - stay over to the left, the current will carry you past the rocks, and you'll be able to waterstart and head round the side of the break out the back. This involved sailing downwind, which at the time I launched seemed virtually impossible, the wind was very gusty and came up high, and I just didn't have the bottle to bear off!! So I fell off, and splashed around until I eventually did get past the rocks and waterstart away. That makes it sound simple, but it wasn't! But I did overcome the huge panic, and ended up lounging around in the water, taking waves in my stride until the wind came back and I got away, heart banging out of my ribs, and trying to remember to breathe...

A handy stop for cautious windsurfers...

Went right out the back, deep blue water, the swell large enough to make the wind gusty when it wasn't howling. Came back into the wave zone, trying to stall against the strong wind to slow up and watch the swell for something useful, but eventually gave up and tried a comedy wave, except my brain completely malfunctioned and I took my back foot out of the strap and then realised I was mad, tried to recover and do a turn, but fell off - in the impact zone of course! Tosser...

More waves on the head, but calmer this time... Waterstarted and escaped, wimping out on the incoming waves and killing speed rather than jumping, until faced with a steep-faced monster that I half-heartedly jumped, leaning back - should have done what you're supposed to do i.e. hit it hard, tuck up and pull the front hand in, but instead fell off again. Got away with this, because there was wind enough to waterstart and get out the back without much more grief.

By now I was a bit tired, so figured maybe I should do what Sean does, go out for a short while then come back out after a rest, and besides, I needed to practise the getting back - hitting the beach is a bit non-trivial, especially with the wind so offshore. So I headed as far upwind as I could, and int he meantime watched the back of the breaking waves ahead of me, trying to work out where I'd want to be if I was going to ride them. Headed into the beach, but about 200m out realised that I was going to miss by quite a bit, not enough upwind, and dumped myself into the bit just in front of the rocks with the intention of going round again - eugh. Now this time I was much closer, and in fact, at one point had my feet on the reef and then - the rock!! I was pinned on the sodding rock, and fortunately by a small wave... I pushed off when it passed and the current carried me away - phew, lucky John! Waterstarted eventually and headed out the back, definitely coming in this time round!

This time I tried really hard to head upwind, using all the tricks - by the way, using the tricks to get going, hearing Cribby's voice in my head telling me to do this and that really helps, and I feel much more in control, rather than being just knackered and wimped out! This time I hung back, and picked a wave rising behind me which I basically cruised right into the beach, ramming the board as far up as I could before leaping off, with Cribby helping and shouting encouragement, and other clinic members standing there shouting too... Made it easy!

I didn't get to go back out, it went very offshore, a storm came in, and...

Big thanks to Jurgen, who I bumped into in one of the rinse cycles, and Christina who also joined me in the break. Respect, dudes!!

A good day.

A workout on the beach...

Another day at Sprecks. It's not so windy today, and Guy suggests we rig small sails because we're going to be doing lots of beach training in preparation for forward looping. Eeek. In fact, it turns out that that's all we end up doing, for various reasons...

There's a couple of important points to this - firstly, the "sideswipe", which is an extremely important move in lots of circumstances, and is the "ooh" of "ooh, aah, Cantona". Extend the rig into the eye of the wind straightening the front arm, while keeping the back one well bent, and looking behind to turn the shoulders. This should be done whilst jumping up from a crouched position, just as the board takes off from a bit of chop or maybe a 30ft wave - your choice. Then the next point is to yank the back foot up and back in the "moonwalk", scooping the board into wind so it catches it and floats a bit whilst coming with you in the rotation. The rest just happens... Apparently.

But although the day was a bit of a blur of blinding heat, endless repetition of moves, fluctuating wind and needing to drink, there was lots going on anyway. We got to meet Kauli Seadi again, and Marcilio Brown (Brawzinho), who chatted amicably about double and triple loops, Riccardo dropped by and talked about his triple loop attempts, which he's tried a few times. Last time he punched a knee-sized hole in the board and broke his wrist - he wears a helmet and body armour when he tries it, maybe that's a tip too!

Finally, we got a preview of the 2012 JP board range, along with Martin B and Werner Gniegler the board designer. I have to admit I'm pretty unmoved by the graphics on these new boards, they're a bit like a no-talent teenager went mad with some fluorescent markers, but people seemed to like them. Apparently Martin goes down to the retail surf area of Maui to check out what's going on in the headline stores of Quiksilver and so on, to pick up the vibe. Hmm.

Rather than go for a mad downwinder to Kanaha, we opt for making a huge veg and chicken curry - excellent stuff!! Completely trashes the one from last night.